We parked our car in the downtown parking lot. It only took a few minutes for the parking attendant to head our way. He didn’t like the way we parked and was trying to be sure he got his money. Settling up with him and unloading from the car, we started our brief trek across the parking lot to where he was now standing. Stopping briefly, he began to ask questions.
“are you guys going to that Christian event?”
“yes, we are.”
“so you guys are Christians?”
“yes, we are.”
“Well, I guess that has value, but…”
“It has a ton of value…eternal value.”
“yeah, but there is a difference between just being part of a religious event.”
There it was….the opening in the conversation I was waiting on. It was apparent he had parked cars of many going to the same place I was going. Who knows how many conversations he had with them, but this one was not going to be about an event or about “church”. He was right. There is a difference in just being a part of a religious event.

“you are right, there is a difference between having a religion and having an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.”

We waited, not knowing how the words might fall. With his hands in his pockets, a smile crossed his face. He looked at us and said…”now that’s what I’m talking about. You and I, we are on the same page.”
Right on…the guy was just looking for some real authentic conversation about the event that was going to happen. Not saying others weren’t or aren’t authentic, but I am saying that it was obvious this guy was looking to see if we were just nominal Christians coming to an event or the real deal.

People are watching. They are looking to see if we are the real deal or just doing the deal. They are looking to see if we are passionately in love with Him or just talk about loving Him. They are watching to see if we just go to church or are the church. They are looking for something real and authentic, not just people who go on Sunday morning, but people who will have conversation with the parking attendant about a relationship with Christ-not an event or a religion, but about Jesus.
Not saying that I am all that. Believe me, I fall short…and there is no shortage of people to point that out in my world. However, people are watching. And if they had to judge your walk based on your talk, we all might do pretty good. But it isn’t. It is based on the authenticity of your pursuit of Him. It is based on whether you Love Him with all. What if the only Jesus people ever saw….was YOU. Would they see HIM? Or could they not get to Him because of what they see in you?

2 Cor 5:20-21 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin {to be} sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

ALL FOR YOU

tabernacle

Last night, I attended the start of Passion City Church in Atlanta. It is a church that is being established on the vision of being FOR GOD, FOR PEOPLE, FOR THE CITY and FOR THE WORLD. And for now, they are meeting in different venues all across the city, until the Lord reveals where they are to plant their feet for the duration. Last night, we met at the TABERNACLE in downtown Atlanta. The TABERNACLE is now a night club/music venue and is currently operated by the world’s largest live music company..
But last night, it returned to being a church. Let me explain. In 1909, Len Broughton had a vision to bring the church to the hub of Atlanta’s activity, near the train depot downtown. In 1897, Third Baptist Church, a small congregation of 300, moved into downtown Atlanta and began to minister to the people there. By 1909, they realized they needed a bigger place to meet and with a vision unrivaled a 100 years ago, they set out to build the largest church in the southern United States. Sept 3rd, 1911, they opened the doors and within 15 min the place was filled. They turned away over 3000 that day.
And here we were, almost 100 years later, using a building that has since been used to promote the worship of the world, doing what it was intended to do. Yes, there were signs of the world all over the building…but there was still something sacred about that place. It’s original intention was to be used as a place to draw people to worship the Living God. And though it has been used along the way to do something other than that on this night, it returned to being a TABERNACLE for the LIVING GOD. A place where His glory dwelt and a place where He dwelt among us. We were doing exactly what had been done 100 years previously…packing the place out for the purpose of exalting the Father.
A Tabernacle is a dwelling place. The question on most days is WHO dwells here? Not in that building. But within us. We are the Tabernacle of the living God, but quite honestly, we are quick to be judgmental about having church in a place that has housed such wickedness along the way. And yet, we are no different. God’s original intent for us was to be His dwelling place. But we too, deviated from that and allowed our lives to be marked by the evil of this world. However, in HIS grace, we have the opportunity to return to the original intent and to make this place a House of prayer and worship, a place He can dwell.
Pretty cool that we got to be a part of returning a place to it’s original intent. To use what has been used for evil as good. There is more to this story. But for now, perhaps we should not look at the building we worship in but our own hearts and see how we have allowed the world into it. Somehow we want our buildings pure, but are okay with mediocre, half hearted, lukewarm followship…we are no longer a sacred tabernacle for our God. Let’s start from the inside out.
ALL FOR YOU

budlight2

Okay, I am still stuck on the Bud Light sign. You remember, the Bud Light sign in the night club where I attended church. But this time, I am stuck on it for a different reason. When Jesus called us to come follow Him, He declared that He was the Light in the darkness and that we were to follow the Light-Him. And when He told us to make Disciples, He gave us a plan for doing so.
When Jesus gave us the plan for making disciples, He said that it was to be life on life, one at a time, doing life together. He gave no instruction or plan for mass reproduction. Instead, He instructed them to love among themselves (John 16-17) and to spend life doing life everyday together so that as long as there is day, they do not fall away from the faith, but instead stir one another up by way of reminder (Heb 3, 2 Peter 1).
So perhaps the thought of calling people to follow a BUD Light might be exactly what is needed. NO! not the drink. But a call that says, get your Buddy, you know…the one God has entrusted to you, and walk in the Light together. Follow the Light together. Follow the Light in Your Bud and find more of Him together. Be a BUD LIGHT-a light for you Buddy.
God’s plan from the beginning was that we walk in the Light, not in darkness. But it was also His plan that we do life together with another. Not with a ton of people. Go back and read John 13-17 and see for yourselves. He was all about telling His disciples to stick together as 11 and to show the world they are His by how they love and serve each other. In fact, He says that by loving another this way, washing their feet and clinging to the Word, that the whole world will come to know Him. Pretty backwards thinking…that by loving a few, the many might know. But it was His plan. That buds…walking in the Light together, might lead others to know the Light.
So maybe a BUD LIGHT sign might be just the sign we need in church. Not to draw us to drink, but instead to be reminder that we are to make disciples, by finding one, focusing on the one and reproducing the Light in that one. A Bud…a Light.

John 17:9-10
"I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine; and all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I have been glorified in them.

Doxa
ALL FOR YOU

worship in a night club

Recently, I attended a church service in a night club. Kind of a different environment to have church in, but pretty cool. It wasn’t a Christian concert or an event of some sort, it was a “church service”. But because it was in a night club, there wasn’t the normal icons of church around us.
One of the many things that caught my eye was the BUD LIGHT signs that hung everywhere. Not your usual sign that is seen in a church. They weren’t lit up, nor were they selling drinks, but it was a little odd to walk in for “church” and see that on the wall.
Towards the end of the night, there was a time of response offered for those who wanted to receive Christ or perhaps talk to someone for some help. The person who was giving instructions as to where people could go to respond said, “just go to the Bud Light sign.” And then she realized what she said and we all laughed. Just follow the light, it will lead you to Jesus-the Bud Light sign will lead you to Him.
Quite sure, Bud Light won’t lead you to Jesus, however, it made me stop and think. Here I sat in a night club, worshipping Jesus with all I have and when given the opportunity to respond, the call was to follow the Light. And although it was a Bud Light sign, that in and of itself made me stop. Many would have been offended. But not me. Instead, I began to think that perhaps the Light that many think are leading them on is not really the Light they should be following at all.
Jesus was different. He was not full of religion and regulations. But He was not merely full of love and tolerance either. He is both Love and Sacrifice. Light and Life. Grace and Mercy. But also, Justice and Wrath. Jealous and God exalting. He did not tolerate half hearted followship, nor did He approve of those who wanted only to obey the Law. He wanted us to have a heart to fully know Him and obey Him. He called us to follow the Light (John 1, 14). But His ways were not the traditional ways of the day. He might have stood on a stage and said follow the Bud Light. Not the drink, but the unconventional way of the cross.
So, while I laughed at the response being offered to follow the Bud Light, I think I am way down with that idea…
John 1:9-10 There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
Doxa
ALL FOR YOU

walking in the dark

I ALWAYS have to get up in the night and go to the bathroom. And I HATE turning on the lights. So, most nights, with eyes closed and no lights, I make my way to the bathroom, shuffling my feet and walking thru the darkness. Because I am familiar with my surroundings and know where the furniture sits, most nights I can make it there and back with out stumping my toe, hitting my knee or falling down. Last week, I had to go downstairs in the middle of the night and much like my treks to the bathroom, I made the journey down the stairs in the dark. About halfway down the stairs, it hit me. The reason I can wander around in the darkness is because I am so familiar with it. And then, I realized that this is NOT a good thing.
The Word is so clear about darkness.
1 Peter 2:9 says “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;”
We are not called to walk in darkness and we are not to be so familiar with darkness that we could walk around in it with our eyes closed, knowing our way. We NEED to be of those who walk in His marvelous Light.
1 John 1:6 “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;”
How many of us are walking around in darkness and liking it because we know our way around despite the lack of light? But sooner or later we will fall. We might can manage life apart from light for a short while, but we can not live in darkness. We need to understand that in order to have fellowship with the Lord that we can not be walking in darkness, but must instead learn to live in the Light. And yet, we often live our lives like I go to the bathroom, shuffling our feet thru the darkness and hoping we don’t hurt ourselves.
Maybe it is time to turn the LIGHT on and let is SHINE, piercing the darkness. In Him there is NO darkness. So quit walking around into the dark. Step into the Light and fellowship with the God who wants you to see Him.

ALL FOR YOU